Final Destination 3 proves that a decent horror movie idea can’t be stretched into a trilogy without sucky consequences. I thought the original movie offered a cool premise and the sequel had some of the most creative death scenes ever, but this third movie was a lamer. Interestingly enough, this was written and directed by the same guys who did the original. I guess they used up all their good ideas on the first movie.

Each one of these movies opens with a huge accident where many people are killed. We are shown the accident and all the victims, then the movie jumps back in time to just before the accident and we are shown a character realizing they just had a glimpse into the future. When that character stops some of the victims from getting involved in what leads to their death, they thwart fate and so Death comes looking for them to settle the score. There is no Grim Reaper involved, but instead each character dies in unique freak accidents.

In this film, the big accident involves a roller coaster that jumps the track. The first movie had some high school students getting off an airplane just minutes before it takes off and explodes. The second film had once of the most well-choreographed highway accident sequence ever filmed. This third movie just has a CGI roller coaster jump the track. It is nowhere near as cool or intense as the first two movies. I could even tell from the previews that it was going to be a let-down.

The lead character who has the premonition is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead of Sky High. Although she lost her boyfriend on the roller coaster, she develops a love interested with another boy (Ryan Merriman) who lost his girlfriend on the same accident. The rest of the characters are throwaways and you know they won’t survive the movie. Most of them fit into some kind of high school age cliché.

According to the way Death supposedly works, the people who got off the roller coaster were to have died in the order that they were sitting. Winstead and Merriman had some photos of the event and then go contact each person to warn them of their impending doom. What makes this movie so stupid is that just about every person they warn dies while they are being warned. Time and time again these two people show up to talk to somebody and that person dies, yet the authorities never once question them.

Some of the death scenes in this film were original, like where an engine lands in the back of a convertible and the fan chops up the back of the driver’s head. A nasty nail gun accident takes out one girl. The most over-the-top of them all involved two girls who get trapped inside some tanning booths as the power overloads and they are literally burned alive. There’s lots of upper body female nudity in that scene, too.

James Wong directed this and the first Final Destination movie. His previous work history involves several episodes of the shows The X-Files and Millennium. He and writing partner Glen Morgan threw in bits of originality with how the victims meet their fate, but the storytelling aspect of this movie was bad. What should have been more creepy and scary was too mechanical and predictable to get a rise out of the viewer. As you watch, instead of being surprised when something happens, you just sit and wait for it to happen. Horror movies without the element of surprise are never that good.

If you are a die-hard fan of this series, you might like Final Destination 3. I’d recommend waiting for the video, which shouldn’t be too long before its release. This movie did make a nice little profit in the theaters, so I would not be surprised if there is a fourth movie. I probably won’t be seeing it unless the people who made the second movie get involved.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age